The latest in a growing number of Israeli airstrikes against Syrian territory appears to have been one of the most ambitious yet, striking deep into the Homs Province, near the Lebanese border and destroying what was said to be a weapons depot for the Syrian military.

The attack destroyed the site, and provoked retaliatory fire from Syrian air defense, who fired a number of surface-to-air missiles at the Israeli warplanes. Israeli officials say none of their planes were hit in the incident.

This is just the most recent of several attacks by Israel in the last few weeks against Syrian military targets. Though Israel used to be very coy about their attacks on Syria, in recent instances the Israeli press seems to have no problem getting official confirmation.

Where this is all leading is another matter, however. Israel has been very public about being upset that the Assad government is winning the Syrian War, and with ISIS and al-Qaeda both on the ropes, Syria may not feel so overwhelmed by existing fights that they feel incapable of retaliating. Likewise, Russia’s patience with Israeli attacks has always been tentative, at best, and could quickly dry up.

Russia looks bad in this…even if, as Putin claims, Russia has no beef with Israel and is not bound by the terms of Russia’s entry into the war in Syria to protect Syrian military assets from destruction by Israel.

Israel always wanted Assad removed so the Golan issue would be less contentious, now their proxy war has ended poorly they change tactics and start to provoke a retaliation that can be used as further invasions.

The goal remains the destruction of Syria’s military, as it has all along. Israel hopes to provoke Syria into attacking Israel, and will then call on the US to help Israel destroy Syria’s military a la Libya.

Israel is also pushing the US to attack Hizballah in Lebanon. The recent Congressional sanctions on Iran and Hizballah and Israeli threats appear to be aimed at getting the US to do a Libya on Lebanon.

It’s not going to be hard to get Trump to back Israel in these schemes.